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Crispy 'seaweed' is a clever invention of Chinese restaurateurs, who took tough and often unusable dark green cabbage and kale leaves, then shredded and fried them to make a snack so well-loved it's now a core part of any Chinese restaurant's mixed starter dish. The look, texture and flavour is indeed very similar to actual seaweed dishes found in East Asia, just more widely available in the UK (and much cheaper)!
Book: How to Be a Noodle Legend
Prep: 5 mins
Cook: 25 mins
Crispy Seaweed
Downloadable Recipe
This easy dipping sauce has a spectacular colour and a rich flavour from our LA JIAO BLEND, but not too much heat. Serve with dumplings or wontons, or even drizzle over simply cooked greens, plain rice or on top of a fried egg!
Cook: 5 mins
Chilli Oil Dipping Sauce
In this simple Sichuan-style side dish, plain beansprouts are given a fabulous new life with lots of sesame oil, vinegar and soy sauce. The star of the show is a spicy seasoning made by pouring boiling hot oil over dried spices and garlic so they instantly sizzle in the heat, imparting all their colour and flavour to this delicious dressing.
Prep: 10 mins
Cook: 10 mins
Beansprout Salad
The intriguing name of this classic dish is owed to the use of lots of Sichuan pepper in the dressing. Sichuan pepper is the berry from a prickly ash tree, and has a lovely fragrant citrus scent as well as an extraordinary numbing effect on the tongue when eaten. It adds a fantastic flavour to this simple and spectacular-looking dish that's as mouth-watering to look at as it is to eat!
Prep: 15 mins
Cook: 50 mins
Sichuan Mouthwatering Chicken
In a Chinese takeaway, these ribs would usually be boiled first to cook them through and tenderise them, then deep-fried for that distinctive dry and crispy coating. Here we're cooking them in the oven which works equally as well, and coating them in a toasted spice and salt seasoning at the end to add an extra dimension of heat and flavour to this incredibly moreish starter.
Cook: 1 hour 40 mins
Salt & Chilli Ribs
These hearty and filling dumplings made with wheat flour are 'Northern-style', as opposed to the smaller wontons and more delicate dumplings made with egg (and sometimes rice flour) from Hong Kong and Southern China. The chewy dough makes them really moreish, and it has the added advantage of being slightly easier to make and handle, so they're a good place to start on your dumpling-making journey!
Cook: 1 hour
Northern Style Dumplings
Kung pao is a westernised version of a Sichuan dish - gong bao chicken. Unlike gong bao (which tends to be a drier dish with lots of of chilli and Sichuan pepper), kung pao has a richer sauce with a slightly sweeter, tangier flavour profile whilst still retaining the classic elements of chilli and Sichuan pepper (plus a delicious crunch from the water chestnuts and cashew nuts!).
Prep: 20 mins
Kung Pao
This unusual method of preparing a cucumber salad is unique to China, and involves smashing (or smacking) a cucumber along its length. This process breaks up some of the cells which release more of the juice and also creates a really varied texture with lots of tiny cracks for the delicious dressing to find its way into!
Cook: 35 mins
Smashed Cucumber
This simple dish has an incredible depth of flavour from the rich soy cooking broth. It's a Cantonese classic, and now such a favourite that you can see deliciously glossy-looking soy-cooked whole chickens hanging in the windows of Chinese restaurants around the world. Using skinless breasts is much easier at home, but try making this with legs or skin-on breasts for an even better colour, texture and flavour!
Cook: 1 hour 10 mins
Soy Sauce Chicken
Special' fried rice is a delicious jumble of chicken, pork and prawns together with bits of egg and seasoned rice. Once you've mastered the technique, you can use pretty much any mix of ingredients you prefer - even leftover scraps from a Sunday roast or a bit of chopped salami or cured meat would work brilliantly!
Prep: 25 mins
Cook: 20 mins
Special Fried Rice
This is a very simple side dish you can serve with any Noodle Legend main course, and is a great alternative to plain rice. The beansprouts are a really important ingredient as they add a delicious juicy texture and satisfying crunch against the soft noodles which soak up all the flavour from the sauce.
Stir-Fried Noodles & Beansprouts
Leafy green vegetables are an important part of any Chinese meal, and this simple stir-fry can be made with anything from easily available cabbage, pak choi or broccoli, to choi sum, gai lan or water spinach (if you can find them in a Chinese supermarket!).
Stir-Fried Greens
It's almost impossible to imagine a Chinese takeaway meal without a pot of delicious sweet & sour sauce on the side! Here we're using orange juice as a base together with ginger, garlic and the Noodle Legend spices to give some extra fragrance and depth of flavour. It makes a very welcome accompaniment to any Noodle Legend feast!
Sweet & Sour Sauce
This dish, known as di san Xian, is a delicious combination of 3 favourite northern Chinese vegetables - potatoes, aubergine and peppers. They're cooked separately, then mixed together in a rich soy-based sauce resulting in a dish that works brilliantly as a side or even a vegetarian main course.
Cook: 45 mins
Three Earthly Treasures
Sweet chilli is an essential dipping sauce for prawn crackers and spring rolls in British-Chinese takeaways, but it's also very versatile and goes with pretty much everything from a Thai curry to a full English breakfast! It's quick and easy to make your own at home, and you can always add extra chopped fresh chillies if you prefer a really spicy version!
Noodle Legend Sweet Chilli Sauce
These simple prawn wontons can be made with wonton wrappers or filo pastry (for which you'll need to use 2 layers, as filo is much thinner and more prone to cracking than wonton wrappers!). Either way, they're very easy to make and you can get great results from an air fryer or a hot oven if you prefer not to deep-fry.
Cook: 40 mins
Crispy Prawn Wontons
This super-easy and delicious sauce has a lovely sweet, tangy flavour profile, as well as plenty of pungent garlic and spicy chilli from the mix of dried Sichuan chillies in our LA JIAO BLEND. It goes with pretty much anything, but use sparingly!
Chilli Garlic Sauce
This soup is a really satisfying dish, full of the sweet fragrance of star anise and sesame oil. It's thickened with cornflour, then has cooked shreds of egg stirred through to add a wonderful texture and visual appeal. You can have this as a simple meal with some crusty bread on the side, or as a starter for your Noodle Legend spread - the mild flavour makes it sure to be a crowd-pleaser!
Cook: 30 mins
Chicken & Sweetcorn Soup
These giant meat dumplings (known as Xian bing) are named after the enormous rounded nail heads that are still visible on the wooden doors and gateways guarding the Imperial palaces in China's ancient cities. They're filled with spicy pork or beef, then fried so that the pastry goes crispy but still retains all of those delicious spicy meat juices inside to enjoy when you bite into it!
Door Nail Meat Pie
Sesame oil and sesame seeds (in our ZHIMA BLEND) are combined here with soy sauce to make a simple dressing for steamed greens. The flavours of many Chinese restaurant main course dishes can be very savoury and often have a high proportion of meat, so a plate of simply dressed green vegetables is always welcome!
Sesame Greens
This is a very simple and refreshing cucumber salad with a slightly creamy dressing from the mix of tahini (sesame paste) and sesame oil. It's a great one to have with any dark, strongly flavoured dishes such as soy sauce chicken or red braised pork as the mild fresh flavours help to balance all the rich, savoury tastes in the main course.
Sesame Cucumber Salad
These dumplings are known as jiaozi in China and gyoza in Japan. They're cooked initially in water (to fully steam the filling and dough), then uncovered and fried until crispy and delicious. They've become a big favourite in the West over the last couple of decades and now it's really easy and very satisfying to make them at home!
Prep: 0 mins
Cook: 15 mins
Potstickers
These simple dumplings are known as siu mai in Hong Kong, where the mix of minced pork and finely chopped prawns is a huge favourite. Unusually, they're cooked 'open' with the filling showing at the top and the wrappers only covering the base and sides. This makes them much easier to fold, and gives you the chance to top them with any ingredient you like. Here we're using a piece of spring onion, but you could also use a single pea, chopped carrot or even fish roe for a spectacular look!
Pork & Prawn Dumplings
This sauce is the ideal accompaniment for crispy duck (hence the name!), but also works very well with roast pork or barbeque dishes. Sweet and tangy fruit-based sauces are very popular in China, and this version uses prunes (although any dried fruit would also work well) to give a wonderful dark, rich and sweet flavour that's enhanced with the fragrance of our BADIAN BLEND.
Peking Sauce